Hawke, who was raised in New Jersey, began acting while in high school and at age 15 made his film debut in Explorers (1985), playing a teenager who builds a spaceship. In 1988 he enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University to study drama but dropped out after a few months to take a role as a prep school student in Dead Poets Society (1989). The film, which also starred Robin Williams as a charismatic English teacher, was a critical success. Hawke subsequently worked regularly, and by age 25 he had starred in 15 motion pictures, including White Fang (1991), an adaptation of Jack London’s novel; Alive (1993), a drama based on the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s fight for survival after its plane crashes in the Andes Mountains; and Reality Bites (1994), which centred on a group of twentysomethings trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives after college.

In 1995 Hawke starred in Richard Linklater’s romantic drama Before Sunrise, which follows two tourists who meet on a train and spend a day together. Three years later he starred opposite Uma Thurman in the sci-fi thriller Gattaca; the couple married in 1998 and divorced in 2004. Other films in the 1990s included Great Expectations (1998), a modern take on the classic novel by Charles Dickens, and Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), a love story set against the backdrop of Japanese-American internment during World War II.

In 2001 Hawke made his directorial debut with Chelsea Walls, about the people who live at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in New York City. That year he also starred opposite Denzel Washington in the crime drama Training Day. Hawke’s performance as a police officer new to a corrupt narcotics squad earned him his first Academy Award nomination. In 2005 he was nominated for an Oscar as one of the screenwriters for Before Sunset (2004), a sequel to Before Sunrise. He later starred in Fast Food Nation (2006)and , Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), and Brooklyn’s Finest (2009).

Hawke also wrote the novels The Hottest State (1996; filmed 2006), Ash Wednesday (2002), and Manhattan Story (2003). In 1993 he cofounded the Malaparte Theater Company.